I recently had the chance to catch up with Rachel and ask her a few questions about the work she’s doing at the moment on maternity coaching. As a mother of two young boys herself, and a highly esteemed coach, I know this work has been of particular interest to her…

HR: So, how are you finding the maternity coaching that you’re doing at the moment?

RM: I’m absolutely loving it! Having the chance to help women as they try to juggle pregnancy, work and the looming prospect of an addition to the family strikes a real chord with me. It’s a challenge I’ve experienced first-hand, and to be able to support others is really special.

HR: Tell me a bit about the people you are supporting?

RM: As you might guess, I’m working with women in a range of roles, typically involving management, who are about to go off on maternity leave. I support them over a series of 6 conversations, but it’s really flexible in terms of when they want these sessions. Typically we will have a few in the months leading up to the maternity leave. Then again as they are preparing to come back and the first few months as they are back in work.

It’s a huge challenge for women in this situation. Everything that they have known is ‘changing’ – home, work, and even their identity that’s associated with these places. It affects confidence and typically challenges the individual’s perception of what matters, what’s important, what goals now look like to name just a few things. It’s not difficult to see that some focused coaching at this time can be really beneficial to help them see the wood from the trees.

In my experience, women feel all sorts of conflicting emotions during this period; they don’t want to leave their jobs, they have the concern of handing it over to someone else, concern about how they will be viewed when they return. Their confidence is often challenged as indeed it is during times of transition, and they will find themselves working out how to ‘juggle’ some extremely important things; partner, work, career, family, own identity… They leave the workplace with one ‘life’ and return to it with a very different one. And their workplace will most likely have changed drastically during the time they are away too.

And on top of that they have the challenge that the workplace may view them differently too.

HR: Why do you think maternity coaching is so important for organisations?

RM: There are all sorts of reasons maternity coaching can benefit organisations. A lot of talent is lost when maternity leavers don’t return, so any organisation looking to retain their talent should undoubtedly think of this option. Experience is showing me that often even those who ‘return’ feel displaced, and therefore immediately question whether it remains the right place for them. They question lots, including whether they are still ‘entitled’ to try for upcoming promotions having been out for a period of time; whether they are fully contributing if they have to leave at a fixed time… The list of questions is really quite long.

At the same time organisations are recognising their duty of care for the employees, and supporting and promoting the wellbeing of employees is a business responsibility.

I’ve seen first-hand the positive impact of offering maternity coaching. When organisations demonstrate that they care, and show that they value individuals, those individuals are willing to work even harder for the organisation on their return.

HR: What do you cover during the sessions?

RM: As with all my coaching, the sessions are led by the individual. However, common areas that we might look at include:

Letting go, even if only temporarily

Handing over to your maternity cover

Retaining your confidence – recognising that you might be different, but still as good, if not better than you ever were

Balancing your new work-life priorities – juggling better than you’ve every juggled before

Dealing with other’s reactions to your new approach

Controlling your own mind and the space it requires

Communicating your mid and long terms goals and aspirations

Overall the sessions are about supporting the individual, and giving them the chance to face their workload and working environment with confidence and reassurance.

HR: Does your approach differ from your normal coaching methods?

RM: Not much. I still start by being completely open, honest and non-judgemental. We also take an outcome focused approach, agreeing the “road map” – where we’re heading, the areas we want to cover along the way, and what the coachee wants to get out of the process. Then we keep this in mind every session. I’m happy to share my own experiences when they’re relevant, but it’s always about the coachee.

If you’d like to know more about maternity coaching, or would be interested in discussing coaching for you or your organisation, please contact Rachel on Rachel@motionlearning.com, 07833 184364

Martin Seligman, the “father of positive psychology”, was in London last night, sharing his views on happiness with over 900 people in a packed venue, where at least 60% of the audience, according to Martin, were engaged in the topic! The other 40% were too busy indulging in sexual fantasies, apparently…

Over the course of 90 minutes, the conversation ranged from homo prospectus’ focus on the future, how we can aspire to happiness and teach ourselves and others to achieve it, and the fact that all we’ve learnt, about learnt helplessness, is wrong!

Here’s a toe in the water of the areas Seligman covered, with a plea for additions, corrections, and thoughts.

Homo Sapiens v Homo Prospectus

We started with something “none of us would know”, which if nothing else was a leveller. It turned out to be an introduction to Seligman’s recent work, which is encapsulated in his latest book, Homo Prospectus, which explores the idea that we are not so much homo sapiens, that is, distinguished by knowledge, as homo prospectus, that is, distinguished by the ability to imagine far into the future.

Seligman argues that the science shows us that we are constantly generating simulations and mental images of our possible futures. As he pointed out, as he was speaking, we as the audience were thinking about what we would be doing with his words, in the future. Personally, I was beginning to create sentences for this very piece, so he was making sense to me… Continue reading ‘An evening with Martin Seligman’

An initial reading and response to John Stepper’s inspiring book

I’ve just finished my first reading of John Stepper’s inspiring book Working Out Loud, and I’m strongly motivated to write about it.

My initial reaction had been to write a “review”; to give you a succinct account of the key points of the book, to talk about the structure and content, and to try and summarise its impact upon me and my resultant learning.

However, immediately there are some problems with this approach:

I’m not the best book reviewer, and I wouldn’t be the first to review this book. If you want to know about the book there’s plenty of information already out there (see below), and so my contribution in that format would add little, and not be taken up by many. It would be a one off account, which would appear, disappear and do next to nothing for me or anyone else.

A review seems to me against the spirit and intention of the book. John didn’t write it to get great reviews, he wrote it to get people to take steps towards a more fulfilling career and life.

Because of the above, I’d be putting my energy in the wrong place, and one amongst many of my personal challenges is to focus my energy in the right direction.

So I’m going to attempt something different. I’m going to share my experiences of applying my understanding and learning from this great book.

Although the concept of the Mentor has been around since the time of Homer, it seems very much of the moment. But why should anyone become a mentor? And what does it involve?

The idea of mentoring seems to be having its moment in the sun, with both commercial and public sector organisations investing much time, energy and resources into mentoring programmes. Charities exist simply to enable individuals to mentor others, and organisations like the CIPD enable their members to volunteer their time for mentoring activities.

So it seems sensible to understand what mentoring is, what is required of a mentor, and why an individual might want to become one… Continue reading ‘Why Mentor?’

The Developing Manager series – providing information and support to leaders and managers of all levels.

Our aim is to share ideas and experience around a different monthly theme, in the process starting a conversation about what it means to be a leader and manager in the 21st century.

2: Feedback

For some, the word feedback always has a mild death knoll sound attached to it. ‘I’d like to offer you some feedback….’ automatically heightens many peoples’ adrenalin levels, raises their hackles and puts them on edge. The very idea of being required to ‘give’ feedback to someone can make leaders at all levels take an extra deep breath.

Despite many years of being ‘fed back’ to (and trying really really hard to become open and receptive to the idea) it still conjures up notions of judgement, opinion, deconstruction and post-mortem for me. And from a very large stack of conversations with people in the workplace, I know I’m not alone.

I’ve had so many interesting and insightful discussions with leaders in the workplace over the years around this subject. I’ve poured over the principles of ‘giving effective feedback’ and tried out frameworks endlessly. I’ve even tested them out at home, which doesn’t always go down so well… Continue reading ‘The Developing Manager Series – Feedback’